Daring Bakers - Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

I almost thought there was no Daring Bakers Challenge this month.  When I checked the site to see what the November challenge was, it said "Sorry all, we're not baking this month".  But that is because the challenge is cannoli.  Cannoli is an Italian dessert that is made of fried dough, formed into tubes, and filled with sweetened ricotta cheese.  So no, we are not baking, but we're still making a great dessert.

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Daring Bakers - French Macarons - Lemon with White Chocolate Filling and Chocolate with Nutella Filling

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Being part of a group like The Daring Bakers certainly makes you stretch. The monthly challenges make you bake things you never would have otherwise.  That's certainly true of this month's challenge.  Although French macarons are wildly popular right now and are so pretty, I probably never would have put them on my "to do" list.  Beside, they are famous for being difficult to master and unpredictable.  And they sure did not disappoint.   

Macarons are little almond cookies that are made with egg whites and have a filling that you sandwich between two of the cookies.  If you want to see what the perfect macaron looks like, the famous Beverly Hills bake shop, Paulette's Macarons, is the place to go.  They make perfect macarons in a rainbow of colors, incredible flavors and snazzy packaging.  And they ship.  

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Daring Bakers: Milan Cookies with Lemon Ice Cream

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

For this month's Daring Bakers Challenge, I was excited to see that we could make Milan cookies. I guess everyone is familiar with the classic Pepperidge Farm line of Milano Cookies, so these were fun to make using Gale Gand's recipe. The cookies are light and lemony with a layer of orange flavored chocolate sandwiched in between two cookies. Since the cookies have a lemon flavor to them, I thought a lemon ice cream would be nice to serve alongside. If you wanted something even lighter, you could serve the cookies with a lemon sorbet using the recipe from this post. Remember when making your ice cream or sorbet, it is so easy - make the mixture in the morning, stick it in the fridge to get well chilled and when you're ready for ice cream, it only takes about 20-25 minutes in your ice cream maker.

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